Chapter 18: Putting Guest Post Outreach Theories to the Test [With Some Real-World Data]

By James Agate

Editor's Note: Almost three months after this post was originally published to The Moz Blog (on Feb. 9, 2012), Google rolled out the Penguin algorithm update. Penguin changed the game for link builders who previously relied on generic, mass-solicited guest blogging campaigns as their primary means of acquiring links.
Guest blogging is no longer an effective strategy for building links in and of itself, and quality and diversity of links matters much more than quantity does. Nevertheless, high-quality guest blogging it is still a valuable activity that can effectively supplement both comprehensive link building and content creation strategies that make use of diverse tactics, especially when it is approached on a personal level that is far more organic than scientific.

I wanted to bring you all some data right from a few of our real-world campaigns. As a business, we systemize a great deal and monitor a lot of processes, so it made sense for me to put some of this data to use and try to prove/disprove any commonly held theories about outreach.

The following is based on a sample of 400 guest posts that we placed for clients over a three-month period (Nov. 2011 through Jan. 2012). While the data isn't conclusive, I feel it does provide some good starting points for you to explore in your own outreach campaigns. As with most things, the best strategy is for you to test it out for yourself in the industry you work in.

Theory #1: Being a Woman Will Get You More Links

Speak to nearly anyone who has been building links for a while, and they will have at least come across the theory that you are more likely to be successful approaching someone with an offer to guest post if you are a woman. I would think this stems from the widely held belief (right or wrong) that women are more trustworthy and well-meaning than men.

I wanted to investigate this theory in a little more depth. Quite by accident, of the 400 posts in our sample, it was roughly a 50/50 split, with a woman conducting the outreach 52 percent of the time.

• 790 potential sites were contacted.

• 411 were contacted by a woman.

• 379 were contacted by a man.

Battle of the Sexes: Who Performed Better?

Here are the results of our outreach attempts:

• 437 positive responses were received. (Remember, there is a small attrition rate which has to be accounted for within the guest posting process where the link partner either doesn't accept the content or doesn't deliver on his/her end of the bargain.)

• 263 positive responses were received by a woman (64 percent positive response).

• 174 positive responses were received by a man (45.9 percent positive response).

You might argue that this difference in performance between the genders could be attributed to a number of things:

• Some are better at outreach than others. While this might be true, all receive the same training, and any slight differences should be negated by the comparable training.

• Consultants have different methods. While some consultants may use slightly different methods to perform their outreach, we have systemized our process and continue to innovate, as a team, by sharing best practices. Therefore, any impact due to slightly different outreach methods is likely to be negated.

• Consultants contacted different websites. Again, there is a very real possibility that the difference in performance is attributable to the “leads” each consultant received. We do have different consultants who work and specialize in different industries, so this could potentially have an impact.

To really put this theory to the test, though, we had one of our female consultants get in touch with five potential link partners who had either declined the offer of a guest post or requested payment for a guest post from one of our male outreach consultants.

When a female consultant made contact, they managed to reduce the price of the paid placement (we didn't pay for it anyway), and we got a positive response from two of the potential link partners. To clarify, that was pitching exactly the same website and roughly the same content as before.

That's a pretty interesting find, I'm sure you'll agree.

Theory #2: Job Title Matters

Depending on whether the client has a preference, we usually approach the link partner as either an agency employee or an individual/freelancer.

Some clients like us to contact link partners as if we are employees of their company, while others prefer that we disclose our agency connections. On the face of it, this may stir some ethical debate. However, in these situations we merely act as the facilitator between our freelance content team and the host blog, and since we strive to create win-win-win situations, I have no problem operating this way.

In all honesty, each of these approaches has its advantages and disadvantages. (While contacting as an agency employee might invoke more requests for payment, it does make the option of continuing the relationship and benefiting your other clients much more practical.) Let's put that aside for now, though, and focus purely on success rates.

• 790 potential sites were contacted.

• 297 were contacted by a freelancer.

• 373 were contacted by an agency employee.

• 120 were contacted by an in-house employee.

In cases where the partner was approached by a freelancer, a positive response was received 189 times (63.6 percent positive response). In cases where the partner was approached by an in-house employee, a positive response was received 78 times (65 percent positive). Finally, in cases where the partner was approached by an agency employee, we received positive responses 170 times (45.6 percent positive).

The results surprised me because one would think that an email from someone working directly for an organization that is going to benefit from the guest post would result in more declines, or at least more requests for some form of payment. Clearly though, trust is an important factor when it comes to largely unsolicited (albeit well researched and properly pitched) offers of guest posts.

Theory #3: Timing Is Important

I was really excited to pull together the data for this one because I was confident that timing really mattered, especially in regards to the introductory email.

While we don't actively record the precise time an email is sent, we do keep a note of the time of day (i.e., morning, afternoon, or evening) for the recipient. We're based in the UK, so running campaigns for our overseas clients requires rigorous planning and execution if we are to get the timing right.

In this case, I found the data inconclusive. This is because when you average the response rate out across industries and countries (as I did in this case), it is only logical that no correlation will be easily identifiable because no two prospects are the same—different industries, different time zones, and so on.

This doesn't mean you can't take advantage of timing, though:

• Recording when your prospect is at their most responsive is helpful for keeping the process moving, especially if they become a little wayward right before the agreed publish date.

• Observing patterns in specific niches can be useful. For example, I have identified a responsiveness pattern across some of the sports blogs we work with (most, not all, respond in their late evening), which could be attributed to the fact they are hobby bloggers with full-time jobs and a family who sneak in a bit of “blog time” once the rest of the family has gone to bed.

Theory #4: Personalisation Is Worth It (or Is It?)

We wanted to guarantee a quality standard with our outreach processes, so we approved templates that we tailor for each prospect.

In certain situations where we feel it will be beneficial, we will write emails completely from scratch.

In the course of our client campaigns, we don't actually send out any generic emails, but in order to compare the difference in outcomes between a personalized approach and a brute force (mass emailing) approach, we conducted a small experiment:

• We sent 1,000 emails in total.

• All were completely templated, offering no specific client website details.

• Prospects were offered five relevant articles with non-specific explanations.

• We were careful to ensure full CAN-SPAM compliance (http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business).

• We focused on the Home Improvement/Interior Design niche.

We gathered the list using common guest post opportunity footprints, and ScrapeBox did all the heavy lifting. With two clicks we had many, many thousands of URLs, and the email harvester pulled together a list of contact details. We used two virtual assistants to do the emailing. They averaged around 125 emails an hour sending them one at a time—they were seriously efficient!

The Results

I have to say, I was surprised by the results. Given the fact that it was a relatively small sample from just one niche, I would say additional data needs to be gathered before we can draw any final conclusions:

• 36 agreed to take a guest post from us (a near 4 percent conversion rate).

• 3 agreed to review a post.

• 1 wanted payment. (I expected this number to be much higher.)

• 12 wanted to unsubscribe.

• 6 responded to say they weren't interested.

When the results first came in, I assumed that it would be a load of poor quality “www.this-is-my-interior-design-blog.info” style websites, but it wasn't. Many who accepted had a PageRank of 2 or 3 with somewhat relevant domain names.

What Did We Learn?

Well, we learned that the brute force approach does work to a certain degree.

You might be thinking, what's the problem then? Let's hire a virtual army, crank up the Scrapeboxing, and enjoy soaring above the competition.

In reality, though, this probably isn't the way to scale your guest posting campaigns. With this kind of practice you can easily blanket an entire industry in a few hours. Consequently, though, you may well burn your bridges and dismiss any hopes of guest posting on authoritative blogs in the space in the future.

In moderation, however, this method could be applied with some success, perhaps following a categorization of prospects—i.e., tailor outreach to the high-value prospects, and roll out a more templated approach for targeting mid-value prospects. This would assist in adding more volume (and likely improve the turnaround time) of your campaign.

We make a note of whether the email sent was tailored or entirely bespoke (templated) and the results align with what you might expect. Completely bespoke emails generate a higher response rate, although the caveat to this is, of course, is that customizing every email just isn't possible if you want a campaign to be of a certain scale.

If you contacted 10 partners with a tailored email, you would get fewer positive responses, but similarly, try sending 100 completely from scratch emails. You need a lot of people and that costs money, which then impacts the ROI of a campaign.

The trade-off, and what I believe to be the happy medium, is a solid template that is tailored to each recipient. Be flexible with your templates, too, and allow them to evolve as you see certain elements working better than others. Innovate, then scale.

Theory #5: The Style of Outreach Email Has an Impact

As mentioned, we have a number of base templates for our consultants to customize. We have one version which is very conversion focused, and another which is more soft-conversion—both variations are useful, just in different industries.

• Template A has very proactive wording that encourages moving to the next step, selecting one of the articles rather than asking whether they'll accept a guest post.

• Template B uses much softer wording that works well in industries where guest posting is less prevalent and where the prospect needs a bit more hand-holding.

As you will note, the more proactive template A is more effective in terms of generating a response. However, given that these styles are effective in different industries, both templates will continue to have a place in our work. That being said, I found it useful and really interesting to compare their performance side by side.

Theory #6: Persistence Pays Off

I believe in creating win-win-win situations when it comes to guest posting, and because we go further to research and evaluate prospective websites, I see no issue in following up with the potential link partner three times before writing them off as unresponsive. If you categorize the responses received in relation to the number of times contacted, it becomes evident that persistence really does pay off.

You will note from the chart below that around 30 percent of positive responses received agreed only after the second or third email.

Had we not been persistent, we would have needed to find, research, and contact additional link partners, which would have greatly increased our workload.

Persistence is one thing, but relentless pestering is another. Follow up on leads, but be polite, and for the benefit of all of us in the industry, know when you should be taking no for an answer.

What's the Perfect Combination?

Is it best to be an in-house female link builder pitching content in the evening three times? No, not always. Different strokes for different folks. To summarize, it's important to test what works best in your industry.

Remember, this is a relatively small internal data sample, so it is by no means perfect. There are always multiple factors in play at any one given time. Despite this, I do feel the study is valid enough to be useful. Hopefully, it will act as a starting point for you to develop your own study or shape your initial guest post outreach strategy.